LEV
"The person you are calling can not accept calls at this time."
A few days later, I returned to Russia with my phone in my ear, making calls to Rose ever since my arrival, but she did not respond.
I was driving from the airport with one hand on the steering wheel and the other was holding onto the phone which was pressed against my ear.
"The person you are calling can not accept calls at this time."
I attempted calling her again, but she did not pick up the phone, even as I reached the mansion gates while they opened for me, she did not pick up my calls.
I drove up the driveway, where a line of all the staff who worked for me was standing in a line by the entrance.
"The person you are calling can not accept calls at this time."
No matter how much I called her, I could not reach her, it seemed that her phone was turned off, and they always went to voicemails.
"The person you are calling can not accept calls at this time."
I called her one last time as I parked the car near the entrance, where the line of staff were standing and waiting for me, like they did each time the head of the household returned.
I hoped that Rose was standing among them, waiting for me back at home, but she was not, I could not catch sight of her.
I put my burning phone in the pocket since the device had grown warm after all the attempts on calling her.
I stepped out of the car and handed the car keys to one of the butlers as I greeted the staff who were waiting for me.
I walked up the staircase, heading directly to the master bedroom because I wanted to do nothing else but to see her again.
The moment I took a step inside the bedroom, I knew that she was not in there because each time she was in the room, she always lit up the fireplace or the sound of music could be heard as she would be playing music in the bedroom.
One thing I noticed was how empty everything seemed without her, the bedcovers were neatly tucked in, there was no significant scent of her in the room, and her clothes in the closet had not been touched for a while.
I walked over to the walk-in closet, as they had not been touched for awhile, even all the dresses I brought her had not been touched.
My gaze drifted on the floor because of a shattered phone. The phone had not been cleaned up for an odd reason, because the maids had been ordered to clean up any mess even if I was gone.
But the phone on the floor looked familiar, until it hit me because I recognized the phone since I had bought it for Rose.
Her phone was shattered on the floor, specifically the phone's glass was cracked as a few pieces of the glass had been shattered into the floor, and not cleaned up yet.
I stepped further into the walk-in closet and knelt by the cracked phone on the floor as there was even dust on the floor, when I clearly recall that I had ordered the staff to clean a few times a week at most after I left.
Something felt extremely off ever since I entered the mansion.
I picked up my phone and dialed Ivan's number as I ordered him to come here because we needed to have a serious chat since Ivan was the one who was supposed to oversee things when I was gone.
A few moments later, Ivan got here faster than I expected.
"What is it, boss?"
"When did Rose leave?" I asked him as I stood up from the floor once I picked up Rose's broken phone.
"She left the day after you had left, boss." He answered as he stood by the door of the walk-in closet.
"How did she leave?" I questioned him.
"She sneaked past the security and took one of your cars." His answer did not sit right with me, because our security was tight, unless he allowed her to sneak past it.
The most unexpected thing that happened here was when Cordelia tried to kill Rose, nothing else had been amiss ever since I left, according to Ivan.
"Did you not search for her?" I was surprised that I could still make out a sentence because I was simply shocked by Ivan's attitude.
"I searched for the car she had taken, and it was found in the outskirts, in the middle of a forest, as she was nowhere in sight. But she got a new phone number and called me the next day." He explained, but my gut was telling me that there was something more than what meets the eye.
"Where is she now?"
"She's with her friend, Perry." He said as he stared into my eyes without flinching or avoiding eye contact.
"But where exactly are they?" I asked, growing impatient by the second.
"I don't know, she could be everywhere." Ivan shrugged, which was unlike him.
I noticed the dark bags under his eyes or the fact that he had grown a slight beard because it looked like he was not taking care of himself.
"Why did you not tell me when I asked you?" I put the broken phone in my pocket, while it seemed a lot of things had happened when I had been gone for a month.
"I asked you if she was safe, how she left and where she was, and you told me an entirely different thing."
"You told me that Rose came back to the mansion after running away, and that Perry had picked her up after coming to Russia, and that she was staying at a place they rented? But now you don't even know where she is?" I added.
"Not only that, but you told me that she called you every day, to inform you that she was safe and that she was in a good condition... but it sounds like a lie now."
Ivan stared at me, as a flicker of despair passed through his glazed eyes.
"Lev, how were Ana's last moments?" Ivan asked me out of the blue, as he mentioned the name of a woman I wished could have died a brutal death.
"Was she in a lot of pain?" He kept on asking questions about Ana, as he ignored my questions about Rose.
I pulled out a cigar and a lighter as I lit up the end of the cigar because the more he mentioned Ana, the more I wanted to sew his mouth shut.
"No, she was not in a lot of pain, the woman lived by the beach like an angel and had a private nurse by her side at all times." I inhaled a smoke, and exhaled as a cloud of smoke escaped my lips.
"I should have grabbed her by the hair and drowned her in the ocean when I had the chance." I told him in a hostile voice, as he widened his eyes in shock.
What Ana had confessed to me that day about our daughter was the truth, it had not been a lie she had made up.
She had killed Layla by lying to her and telling her that they were going on a short trip without me, but in reality Ana took Layla to the cult, and sacrificed her.
Ana did it solely because she wanted to live, but also because she had previous connections to the cult as she had kept regularly in contact with the cult who vowed that they would heal her from any illness.
My blood boiled each time I thought of what she did to our daughter, she committed the worst crime a parent could ever commit against their child.
"What did you say...?" My right-hand man mumbled, as I had almost forgotten about him.
"Ivan, I knew that you loved Ana, but I had no idea that you were this crazy about her." I exhaled a smoke, but I immediately walked out of the closet, since I did not want Rose's clothes to linger the scent of smoke.
"Is that why you lied to me about Rose? Because you were angry that Ana had to die the way she did, and that you were not by her side until her last moments?" I opened a window as I let out another smoke.
I knew that Ivan had loved Ana after I got married to her. I found out the day after Layla was born because I caught him crying, since he was heartbroken that he and Ana did not end up together.
"I loved Ana ever since all of us were teenagers, but you took her away from me, and ruined her." He turned towards me with an angry expression, as he was not the man I once used to know.
Me, Ivan and Sergei had been raised together, but under different circumstances.
I was raised to take over after my father, Sergei and Ivan were raised to work under me until the day they die.
"She was the love of my life, but you got married to her and had a family, you did not treat her as your lover, only as a wife and nothing more. She deserved better." He spat as I inhaled a smoke, while the scent of nicotine did not help me.
"Why did she want you, when you never wanted her?" He questioned as he slightly looked insane, like he was losing his mind because of Ana.
"Ana deserved somebody who was willing to love her, who could give her all the happiness-"
I was feeling an outburst of disgust, as I was fed up with him mentioning Ana.
That's why I calmly placed the cigar by the window, then I walked over to him with my fists tightly clenched.
"I love Ana-" Ivan could not finish the sentence as I grabbed the back of his neck and smashed his head into the mirror next to him.
"I don't give a fuck who you loved, but if you mention Ana one more time, I will cut your dick off and fuck you with it until you die, understand?" A pool of blood gushed from the side of his head as I pressed his head firmly into the shattered mirror.
"Kill me however you want Lev, but Ana is not a person I can't forget even if she was the one who chose you," He says, not wincing as blood dripped from his head and onto the floor.
"T-That's why I lied to you about Rose because she won't ever take you back, you will experience the same pain I felt as you watch the love of your life drift away from you." He chuckles, but it came out as a sad laugh.
"She will never t-take a man like you back." He laughs louder this time.
I pulled away his head from the shattered mirror which had his blood stains on, and bashed his head back into the mirror, but he did not stop laughing.
"When you were in Italy, you didn't know that assassination attempts had been made on Rose... all because I had participated in them." He confesses, as I did not expect another person in my life to betray me.
Ana had killed our daughter, and Ivan had almost killed Rose.
Two people who had been by my side most of my life had betrayed me, yet I left the only one who had not, and that person was Rose.
How could I not lose my mind over that? I felt as though I had lost my mind when Ana confessed to me about sacrificing our daughter, but I was mistaken.
It felt like I lost all of my senses now when Ivan admitted to me that Rose had been in imminent danger, somebody had tried to kill her, and the fact that he participated in it.
I didn't know who I hated more: me or him.
But little did Ivan know that I would send him to be with his love forever, and I always stayed true to my words.
Nine hours later, Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky was playing throughout the underground basement training grounds because it had been her favorite piece.
As two bodies that had been stitched together hung on the cement wall.
That all those people who worked under me would have the opportunity to witness the fate of those individuals who had crossed my path, like Ana and Ivan had done.
They all were forced to stare at the wall while a priest mumbled the vows for the married couple who were hanging on the wall.
"I pronounce them husband and wife..." The priest says, as his attention was glued to the two bodies that were hanging on the cement wall.
The body made of two people had been attached to the wall by a few metal spikes that had been placed into their wrists, forearms and ankles.
"...Ivan Petrov, and Anastasia Petrov." The priest added the names of the two bodies that had been molded together.
I began to applaud as the rest of the people who worked for me followed my lead, but most of them had grown bewildered because of my vile actions.
"Now they can live happily forever." A smile appeared on my face as I stopped applauding, as the rest also stopped.
"Are we done for today, sir?" The priest asked me as he clutched tightly onto the bible.
"Yes, we are done for the day." I answered, as the priest nodded, and got led out of the basement by one of my men who were still regarded as reliable.
I stared at Ivan and Ana, whose different body parts had been stitched together because both of them were deserving of each other, and I prayed that internal happiness found them, so they would be forever and ever, both in hell and fucking heaven.
I turned around and walked away from the main area of the underground basement where the training grounds were located.
I stepped inside a spacious office that had an armchair in the corner, next to it was a small table which had a bottle of scotch, a few cups of glasses and a bucket with ice set aside for me.
"It is done, boss." One of my men had followed me into the office because I had ordered him specifically to search for Rose.
"Where is Rose?" I asked him as I removed the blood-stained dark plastic gloves from my hands and threw them on the ground.
"Did you manage to find her?" I poured myself some scotch into a glass that already had a piece of ice cube.
"We tried to track her down, but she had vanished, her whereabouts are unknown." He answers the question.
"She has vanished? That's a shame... I guess I will have to go and catch her." I stared at the scotch that reminded me of her amber eyes, a lovely brown color with a tinge of gold.
"Catch her?" He asks, as the confusion in his voice did not go unnoticed by me.
"Tell me... What happened to Marcella's baby shower? I heard that the date was always pushed forward, or has the baby shower already passed?" I took the glass in my hand as I went and took a seat on the leather armchair.
"The date of the baby shower was changed again, it will happen in four days now. It will be hosted in Manhattan, inside a penthouse that she resides at the moment." He downplays the confusion in his voice.
Rose had vanished because of me, and It had been all my fault, but I would not let go of her, I simply could not let go of her, it was impossible.
If I could not let go of her, I would do everything in my power to get her back, to get her attention and validation, the first thing I needed to do was to book a flight to New York.
"Get the private jet ready because I need to pay a visit to somebody's baby shower in New York." I ordered him because if I needed to take drastic measurements to get her back, then I would.